Who’s going to be there? You, me, this guy, and a bunch of other people

Wait, what? Yeah, we’re throwing a party to see off our beloved Raptors. It’s been an improvement of a season, but ultimately disappointing because we all want a winning team even though we know coming into the season the chances of having one was zero. So we drink to get over our sorrows.

I like prizes, will you be giving away prizes? Um..no..what for? I guess I could buy you a beer, but they’re already pretty cheap at $4.99 a pint

But I want prizes! Enough with the prizes already

Will you still throw the annual draft party? Of course

Will there be girls there? Probably

Does this post mean you’re not going to write a pre-game post for the Philly game? Kind of. What’s there to write about? Here goes something: Philly won last night at New Jersey in a blowout, after losing four in a row including one to the Raptors by 85 points. I don’t think they’ll forget that, and given that the Raptors will be without Andrea Bargnani, this could be tough. On the plus side, Jose Calderon threw out the first pitch last night. Ed Davis caught it before it reached the plate, pulled up, and missed a 3-foot jumper.

Why rip on Ed Davis? I’m not ripping on him, just pointing out that he’s been given a great opportunity to show what he can do this, and he hasn’t been up for it. The Raptors can’t be looking at him in the same light as they did when they drafted him. Whereas with Bargnani you always knew he had the potential to be good, I’m not sure the same can be said about Davis. His calling card was supposed to be defense, and that’s been in short, inconsistent, supply all season. With Jonas coming in, Bargnani taking up the minutes at the four (barring injury), and Amir Johnson proving to be more consistent, Ed’s role is about as vague as Mitt Romney’s stance on medicare. If there’s an odd man out, it’s him. Question is what can we get for him? Not much I say, which just might be the reason you hang on to him, if for nothing else than because you always need a big guy at the end of the bench. Think Lonny Baxter.

Do the Raptors have any hope? Sure they do, all it takes is a home run in the draft and a free-agent signing/trade that fits. Unfortunately, even though the Raptors have sucked, they haven’t sucked hard enough to get a true top pick. They stand 7th worst in the league, which would normally mean the 7th pick which isn’t great. Given the Raptors’ rotten luck in years the draft is actually good, they’ll probably fall to 10 making the season’s suckfest all for naught. Free-agent signing or trade you ask? I don’t know, but it’ll have to be for a point guard. It wouldn’t even shock me if Colangelo went for Juan Barea in a trade and made him the starter.

If you were the Raptors GM, what would you do? I’d acquire one of the point guards we passed over in last year’s draft, or maybe give DJ Augustin or Goran Dragic a look if you’re desperate – they’ll help increase the pace, but at that point you’re bringing in players that are comparable to Jerryd Bayless. Move DeRozan to the three, bring James Johnson off the bench, amnesty Kleiza, and see if you can throw money at Eric Gordon (what’s his deal anyway?). Think about Nick Batum too. I’d start there.

Hey Arse, you can’t even manage your fantasy team properly, you’re giving the Raptors advice? Good point

Got anything else? Not much, I was just checking out 82games.com and here’s something from there:

Some tidbits:

Amir Johnson is the best Raptor in terms of aggregated plus/minus again with +9.8

Aaron Gray is surprisingly bad at -10.2, which makes me again question this stat because he’s had a decent year

Bargnani went from a -0.5 last year to a +0.2 this year. He’s been negative every year in his career except in 2007-08. Now he’s on pace to be positive. Good job.

Jose Calderon is miles ahead of any Raptor in terms of clutch stats. Much further behind are Amir Johnson and DeMar DeRozan.

If you look at the average #1 pick production, Bargnani’s not doing too bad. But average is just that: average.